I just picked up a used Chronoblob V1, and for the money and space, its a great delay. It syncs perfectly to clock and the delay time is long enough where you can get all these lil loops going with the Hold function. It makes no claims about sounding like tape or analog, so it doesn’t bother me that it doesn’t sounds pretty, but it actually has a slightly dirty character due to the way the analog section in the feedback path is designed. With the send/return section you can use a filter to darken up the sound if you wanted, or actually it sounds quite good with a band pass filter, with the resonance up a bit. It feeds back quicker and gets even gnarlier.

Between the this, the Nebulae and an external analog delay I have no qualms about selling the Magneto.

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I would love to hear a demonstration of this technique. Do you have a clip anywhere that shows it off?

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Necro-ing this question. Anyone found a cool use for the quantizer yet? Or even sending pre-quantized voltages to speed?

I just ordered one, along with an FH-2, so I could do this very move!! Trying out the combo of those two on your rig definitely sold me - thanks again for letting me try it out! I 100% plan on sampling my OP-1 into it, I’ll upload some samples next week!

I have some pretty big plans around clocking it from Ableton and using it to resample clips for manipulation. I have an idea (involving MIDI clips & follow actions) of how to automatically turn Ableton audio clips into synchronized Magneto loops with one button press, but I’ll have to wait til it gets here to know for sure if it’ll be as cool as I hope :slight_smile:

Like this?

i often freeze the buffer and play it with a keyboard, usually with pitch shift on and quantizer on, it sounds incredible!

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Ok I have some more experimenting to do before I make a video of it (I feel like there’s a less kludgy way) but let me describe how I set up a sort of auto-sample.

On Magneto:
-Sample mode, make sure tap light is off
-only Head 4 on to start
-speed at noon
-patch your keyboard or sequencer’s V/Oct out to Speed CV in, and its Gate out to Play CV In
-patch a Trigger out (in my case, from the FH-2) to the Tap input

In Ableton:
-Track 1 has an unlooped audio clip of what I want to sample, routed from an output of my interface to Magneto’s audio in. I started with a single piano C just to verify this all works.
-Track 2 has a MIDI clip routed to the FH-2 to trigger Tap. The clip is unlooped and one bar longer than the audio on track 1. In that clip, there’s a trigger on 1.1, which will tell Magneto to start recording (Tap flashing) as the audio clip plays. Then there’s a second trigger on the first beat of that extra bar, which will tell Magneto to stop recording (Tap lit).
-To sample, launch the row with both those clips. Magneto should have that exact length of audio loaded into it, playable from a keyboard or sequencer!

It does have a bit of a built-in glide (inertia of the “motor” changing speeds). The Speed knob still works too, so you can use it for fun scratching/pitch bending tricks. Noon is original speed/speed, full CW for an double-speed/octave up, full CCW is half-speed/octave down. For bonus fun, with a sequence running, try sending triggers into Reverse :slight_smile:

This module is so fun! Next step is to get a handle on the looper and get that synced up too!

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Yeah I plan on keeping Magneto and Mimeophon as my two primary in-rack effects but gosh I really wish I could get just the tape-delay-compression bits of Magneto in something more reasonable like 14hp. I’ll settle for smaller knobs!

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Yeah a modular Deco in like 10 hp :ok_hand:

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Couldn’t agree more. Mimeophon might replace my Magneto for now but I’m definitely keeping it around.

That sounds dreamy to me

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100%! I’m in the exact same boat. might be about to have 2 delays in my case, probably a good thing actually.

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I wonder if Strymon will return to eurorack at this point? They’re definitely not a “fast” company, so next year is certainly a possibility, but I am curious if Magneto was enough of a success by their own standards to merit future explorations. Obviously the Volante benefited from Magneto’s existence, but, again, it does make me wonder.

A Strymon fanatic friend of mine spent a fair amount of time in the Strymon booth at NAMM when Magneto was introduced. He said they hinted around a blue sky-ish module. A reverb would be the obvious choice, and I think they’re taking their time and will release a killer module within the next 1-2 years.

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I think that’s a good logical next step, and I really hope they do it. I’m slowly working towards a dream euro performance mixer setup with Strymon delay / reverb as aux send FX.

Basic question: is it normal behavior for the volume of the Delay Wet output to be about 50% of the Dry output volume level when both volume knobs are turned completely CW?

I’ve experimented with these volume settings at 100% while having the individual tape heads fully CW and can’t recall if this is normal behavior for the volume levels…

What is the position of Rec lvl knob? :slight_smile:

I believe I had that at 100% CW, fully saturated. I’ll be back at my rack on Monday to test but the levels just seemed very off to me with my last patch…

Earlier in the week I was really pushing the unit hard with fast, irregular clocks making some fantastic glitched sounds, but now i’m beginning to get concerned that something tweaked the Wet channel… I just have no idea if that’s possible. I’ll keep experimenting…

I had a Magneto and I have a Mimeophone now, and I think the Mimeophone is much more interesting of a module. I think the Make Noise one inspires experimentation and the Strymon doesn’t, but I think it shows in their respective pedigrees of what they are good at.

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Definitely inspires experimentation in me! A sound-on-sound tape looper that I can sync to MIDI and melodically play the delay line in key - well, that’s an instrument I’ve been dreaming about for years. Of course if you’re just looking for a delay it’s completely overkill, and I will eventually end up with a Mimeophone as well because it’s got a pretty different take on a similar idea.

Expanding on my earlier post about syncing the looper - I’m now using an Octatrack instead of Ableton, but similar method. Here’s a sample, setup was just Octatrack, OP-1, and FH-2.

3 elements in total.
1 - drum loop from the OT
2 - I used an OT MIDI track to send a trigger into the tap jack to set a 2 bar loop (see above post). I played the OP-1 into Magneto and manipulated the loop extensively with the Magneto’s controls. After a few minutes I had something cool, unrecognizable from the source, in sync rhythmically, and in the right key. I recorded it back into the OT and triggered it as a loop - this is the chord followed by two filtery hits.
3 - this one is the gliding live track on top. Again, set the loop length on Magneto and recorded more OP-1 in. I input a bunch of notes in into the OP-1’s Tombola sequencer, and patched the output into Magneto pitch in. I remember hitting shift and reverse manually, maybe gate went into something too?

I will note it also went to some pretty gnarly and wild places en route to this, I just prefer making melodious and rhythmic synced stuff. Magneto can easily get very Out There.

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